


With a Heart of Doubt

by 2amEuphoria



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Brightwell, Enemies to Friends, F/M, Friends to Enemies, Mutual Pining, We had to DO IT TO EM, you're just gonna have to read and find out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23589799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2amEuphoria/pseuds/2amEuphoria
Summary: But it’s him andher.Not her and him.Set following 1x18.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright & Dani Powell, Malcolm Bright/Dani Powell
Comments: 8
Kudos: 50





	With a Heart of Doubt

So I heard you found somebody else,  
And at first I thought it was a lie...  
I took all my things that make sounds,  
The rest I can do without...

\- _Somebody Else,_ The 1975

He hasn’t said anything. Not aloud, not yet.

But she smells her on him- an upper-middle class type perfume she can’t place. His eyes seem more rested, as if she’s been forcing him to sleep. He smiles more, especially at JT, who undoubtedly has either already been informed or will be soon, behind closed doors, long after Gil’s ordered them out to go take care of paperwork. And he never stays behind, not like he used to-his polite “I have to be out by 6, but I’ll return to this in the morning” remarks and hurried clip to grab his jacket at 5:59 speaks volumes. 

She longs for a repeat of Tuesday. Yearns for it to be that day again, back when she didn’t know, when she took his cheeky grin in response to her clap on his shoulder to mean that maybe, _maybe,_ they had a chance after all.

But it’s Friday now, and time has only burned a deeper pit into the floor of her belly, and not even attempts to tell herself she’s overthinking will soothe her conscious now.

He’s seeing someone.

But it’s him and _her._ Not her and him.

___________________

The problem is that we think, naturally, we have time but you'll find  
Anything can happen, don't take it for granted...

\- _10k Hours,_ Jhené Aiko

She twirls a hair that belonged to her former dog, Black Bear, between her fingertips as her mind takes her to places that make bile threaten to rise up her throat.

She wonders what it must feel like to be in his arms. He’s never so much as hugged her, only laid a single hand on conservative spots of her body at a time, but she wonders anyway.

How much space could both his hands cover around her waist? What would it be like to feel his stubble tickle her hairline when she’d rest her head under his chin? What freckles, birthmarks, childhood scars has he hid from her underneath the layers of his suits?

Her mind opens doors to moments when she could’ve received the answers to these questions. She could’ve asked him to dance with her at the Taylor wedding, seen him barely clothed at his bedside following the snakebite. Hell, he would’ve done or shown her _anything_ during that time when he was high.

All these chances that she never took. All these opportunities unfulfilled. 

She asks herself why she never took initiative. She usually makes the first move in relationships- she sees what she wants and, like the detective she is, “interrogates” until the other party returns the interest or moves on. But she’s never even tried with him. Why be headstrong and dominant with everyone but _Malcolm,_ of all people?

Gil doesn’t worry her; if he had a problem with her dating a coworker, he would’ve mentioned it when she was young and boy-crazy and drooling over every fellow officer with their sleeves rolled up. JT used to crack jokes when she was dating Khalil, and he already had _plenty_ involving Bright; she’d already be accustomed to any teasing on that front. And while Jessica Whitly’s quips and neuroses made Dani’s skin crawl, she knew that, with time, she could grow accustomed to being around her.

Maybe she thought he was too vulnerable. Damaged like him doesn’t do well with damaged like her. Or maybe she thought he’d outright reject her- how could he show her off at parties when she had no idea which utensils to use at an elaborate dinner?

 _“You’re the one I like talking to,”_ her memories remind her of his words. _“And I promise, I’m gonna do better.”_

_Liar._

Her mother’s words scratch at her conscience: _“sometimes, when it feels too good to be true, you can’t give up, because that’s when you know it’s real.”_

Black Bear’s hair falls to the floor as she yanks on a pair of old shorts and tucks her hair into her bonnet. Her mother lived in a fantasy land, as did she, and it was time for her to let that world view go.

 _Just the facts, ma’am,_ she thinks as she stares at her badge on her bedside table. 

___________________

I just don't believe that you have got it in you 'cause  
We are just gonna keep 'doin' it, and everytime  
I start to believe in anything you're saying,  
I'm reminded that I should be getting over it...

\- _Somebody Else,_ The 1975

He asks her to run a background check on his girlfriend. He cracks a joke about his trust issues, his cheeks growing red.

She declines because her head tells her to. Her heart begs for the opposite; how romantic would it be if she uncovered something duplicitous about his girlfriend, and she were to tell him? Would he realize in that moment that she was everything he needed, that she was the one and only truth? Would he sweep her up into his arms, bending her over to kiss her with passion akin to that photo of the soldier and nurse following World War II?

Her head wins this round, though. She stalks away from him to the women’s bathroom, where she presses her palms against her eyes and takes long, ragged breaths in a stall.

___________________

But no, it wasn't meant to be and see, I wasn't made for you,  
And you weren't made for me,  
Though it seemed so easy...

\- _Best Friend,_ Rex Orange County

It’s been a few days since he’s mentioned her to JT. Dani wonders if him and _her_ are officially over.

He’s found out that she was related to the Girl in the Box. He’s taken her to visit Martin- _that_ didn’t end well, apparently. And Dani’s overheard him confess to Gil that his father let the Girl in the Box go; upon hearing this, the girlfriend packed up and left within a half hour.

 _I’m so sorry,_ her head wants her to say.

 _Serves him right for the bullshit he’s put you through,_ her heart growls. _Because you never would’ve done that to him._

It’s her heart that comes out on top this time, and it reigns champion, logic be damned, for a while afterwards.

___________________

I'll be your biggest fan and you'll be mine  
But I still wanna break your heart and make you cry...

\- _Best Friend,_ Rex Orange County

His eyes have always found their way to hers. Neither distance nor subject matter can stop his irises from locking onto hers when they’re within sight of each other.

Typically, she’ll feel his gaze on her and turn towards him, or somehow already be staring at him the second their eyes lock. She’ll take in whatever emotion passes through the pools of blue-sarcasm, or concern, or whatever else he’s feeling. She’s either on the same page, or one step behind; no matter what, when their eyes meet she’s willing to be in tune with him.

This is the start of when she starts to look away.

At first he doesn’t seem to notice, let alone care. Her emotional heart reinforces his reaction, promising her that she’s right not to trust him. He’s volatile, untrustworthy, incapable of being honest with her. _Don’t trust those blue eyes; they’re hiding secrets rather than displaying sincerity._

But with time, she realizes that he _does_ notice. His weight will shift uncomfortably to the opposite foot, and his lips will flatten if she won’t hold his gaze. Eventually it turns into him sticking his hands into his pockets and sighing. 

She can’t help but feel like he’s earned this. Maybe he’s finally getting a taste of what it feels like to leave a promise unanswered. To not give any follow-through.

Her head pleads her to reason with him, but her heart wins yet again.

___________________

You know you got me in the palm of your hand-  
-But I love those hands...

\- _Mean it,_ Lauv ft. LANY

Her head convinces her to respond to his text and meet him at his apartment at 7pm. He lets her in almost instantly, the quickest response she’s _ever_ gotten from him. 

Her disbelieving, angry heart can only guess what he has in store. 

Dim lighting. A bottle of wine, strategically placed next to two plates of food on the table in front of his couch. No Malcolm to be found.

What, was he going to stroll out from the bathroom naked and seduce her?

He does appear behind her, from the direction of the bathroom, but he’s clothed, the sleeves of his collared shirt unevenly pulled up, hair misted with water he must’ve thrown over his face just moments ago to hide the uneasy tone in his cheeks. Her grandmother always told her that cold water can help hide whatever emotion the face has been revealing- apparently, she wasn’t the only one who was taught that trick.

“Hey,” he breathes, “thank you for coming.”

“Hi,” she doesn’t know what autonomic part of her managed to respond to him, but she voluntarily takes over the rest of her utterance: “what’s all this for?”

He rubs his arm absently, exhaling as he approaches her. “Funny you should ask,” he starts, letting a humorless laugh escape him. “It’s an apology-”

“Oh?” she spits. “Were you taught to use gifts instead of words to convey feeling sorry in your house?”

His brow furrows, but he still tries to level his tone, his demeanor. “Dani, I’m just trying to-”

“To _what,_ Bright?” Dani’s jumped from incredulous to seething. “To take advantage of my emotions with some wine and some chicken parm? Do you really think I’m that easy?”

“Dani, I promise-”

“I don’t do promises with you anymore. The last one you gave me fell flat pretty friggin’ quick. Cheap words... How ironic, for someone with money.”

He’s speechless. _Good._

“You broke up with her, didn’t you? I can tell, because otherwise you never would’ve invited me. I can also tell because based on that fancy dinner display and the fact that half the lights are off, you’re looking for something else.” He tries to offer her words, but she cuts him off before he can bring himself to articulate them. “You know me, somewhat at least, because you know that I find it pretty easy to fall for this shit from you. You know that I’d love _nothing_ more than this, right?”

She steps towards him, mere feet away from the unexplainable shock on his face. “Let me tell you something. I’m not your shoulder to cry on when your girlfriend dumps you, or when life doesn’t go your way for the _millionth_ time. And I’m most certainly _not_ your rebound, either. Whatever you’re after, you’re not getting it from me. You had your chance, you set it up for yourself back in that morgue a few weeks ago, but you ruined it. And you’re not getting it back, with or without wine or sweet nothings or whatever else you had planned.”

She audibly huffs as she spins on her heel, turning away and heading towards the door. 

“Dani,” he sighs, pain aching through his voice. Something convinces her to turn once more and face him while her index finger scratches the doorknob.

“I got dinner since it’s been a long day for both of us, and it would be wrong to ask you to come over at this hour without getting you something to eat. Something you like.” His eyelids sink as his eyebrows rise up and plead with her. 

“I got out some wine because you’ve told me before that after these types of days, you love nothing more than a glass of red to wash away what you’ve experienced,” he continues. “And I dimmed the lights because, well, if I have a headache from staring at a computer screen for the better part of the afternoon, I figured you would as well.”

“I wanted to apologize for being unreasonable and intolerable with you lately,” he exhales, fingers tracing his hairline. “No one deserves an apology more than you. I’m sorry-” he gestures towards the dinner set-up, now going cold in his bare living room, “-that you misinterpreted it. I’m sorry-” he brings his eyes from the living room, to his feet, to her eyes- “that there’s clearly more going on, more that I should’ve considered.” The end of his sentence is barely audible, as if he exhausted himself by speaking it.

Her head wants to move her feet-to the couch, to the dinner he prepared, to reason. But her heart can’t agree. She takes a deep breath in and out through her nose, her gaze towards the floor, before she meets his now-watering eyes once more.

“I just wish I could believe you,” she murmurs. “But after everything that’s happened, I can’t.”

Her vision is blurry, but she can see well enough to go down the stairs, out of his apartment, through the dark streets back home to her apartment, to her bed, to what she believes to be true.

___________________

You know it's too late,  
I'm on my own shit now.  
Let me tell you how it feels to be fucking great;  
I feel great...

\- _Best Friend,_ Rex Orange County

It’s been three weeks since what her heart tells her is “the incident.” 

Three weeks of averting stares. Three weeks of standing by Gil or JT instead of in his shadow. 

And now, two days since she went on a date.

She met him through a well-meaning friend. He’s a law student, 26, a career changer. Soft hazel eyes, wavy brown hair, from an Italian family with a last name she can’t pronounce after a bottle of cheap beer. He’s interested in becoming a prosecutor, upholding the law in the face of criminals who know how to abuse the system to get away with things. He has a dog-at home, his parents’, but he has three pictures of her that he shows to Dani to make her elicit cooing noises from some ungodly part of her irrational brain. 

He's nice. He pays for dinner at the tiny pizza shop they go to in Little Italy-just a few blocks away, her head reminds her, from Bright’s apartment. He smells like Old Spice deodorant and his mother’s leftovers that she sends him home with when he returns to his apartment after weekends at home on Long Island. She tells herself that she deserves this over _his_ Creed Aventus cologne and a mother who’s never made a meal a day in her life. 

He’s nice. And sweet. But he agrees with her- everything she says about law enforcement and criminal justice and which couples in the booths around them _clearly_ missed the memo on PDA. He never challenges her viewpoints, or makes her roll her eyes, or asks her random but intriguing questions about her past and her aspirations and what makes her tick. She feels sparks under her lips when she kisses him, but being in his presence doesn’t make her spine tingle, doesn’t make her stand close to him without voluntarily thinking about it, doesn’t make her feel like she’s stepped on a live wire.

_“Sometimes, when it feels too good to be true, you can’t give up, because that’s when you know it’s real.”_

Her mother was always a flower child anyway.

___________________

'Cause right now I see all these people that love me,  
But I still feel alone...  
Can't help but check my phone;  
I could've made you mine...

\- _Best Friend,_ Rex Orange County

He’s screwed up.

 _Big_ time.

He saw the name on her phone the other day. Saw her face light up in response to said name. Watched as she leaned back in her desk chair to text the face that owned said name. The face she was probably meeting up with after work, and smiling at, and kissing...

He feels like he’s going to be sick with every additional gulp of his soup. Ainsley quirks a brow in his direction, the nonverbal message of _“are you going to throw up?”_ conveyed. 

Honestly, with these thoughts clawing through his brain, he might.

___________________

Just tell me if you changed your mind,  
If you changed your mind...

'Cause I'm all, I'm all in,  
I'm callin', no answer;  
But you text me, when you feel like,  
When it feels right, to you;  
But I'm all, I'm all in,  
I'm fallin' faster;  
But if you're looking at me with a  
Heart of doubt...

\- _Mean It,_ Lauv ft. LANY

She can’t remember how long it’s been since she was here.

She remembers “the incident,” of course, just not how many days, weeks, _months_ have passed since. Between now and then there have been difficult cases, long work days, averted stares. The end of a relationship for him, the abrupt start and end of a relationship for her. Time has aged them, seasoned them to show what it’s like to be together physically, in the same location, but distant emotionally.

The lights are dimmed again, save for the spotlights above his desk. A large piece of poster-sized paper lays across the mahogany surface, littered with dots and colors and a distinct shape she’s all too familiar with.

It’s a map of the city. Her home. The only home she’s ever known.

“How long’d it take you to realize what you were looking at?” His voice comes from his bathroom, and he appears to her, dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants that barely cling to his slender frame.

She huffs a laugh. “Longer than I expected, that’s for sure.” She rounds the corner to stare at the map head-on, taking in its details; the bridges, the boroughs, the landmarks. She knows more than this map, though; she knows which neighborhoods have meals that are to die for, which riverside docks she and her siblings used to try to push each other off of to antagonize each other (and their father).

He makes his way over to her, hesitation sinking through the floorboards with each step, and she almost asks him _“what’s wrong; worried about getting burned twice?”_

But she doesn’t, and he manages to stand beside her, closer in proximity than he’s been in a while. He stands next to her in silence for seconds that feel longer than the average person would count before sighing.

“I’ve lived here-" he points to where his mother’s house likely is, on the Upper East Side- “but also here-“ he designates a home farther away, likely Gil’s- “and now here”- his pinky finger stretches to the area where his apartment is. His eyes look up to meet hers, and for once, she doesn’t look away.

Her head tells her to follow his gesture. “I spent the first 16 years of my life in Kingsbridge, over here on Sedgewick Avenue.” Her index finger presses lightly against the Bronx neighborhood, next to the Jerome Park Reservoir. “Then spent 16 to 22 over here-” she gestures to a street in Riverdale- "and after my grandma died, moved myself and Black Bear into the studio I’m in now on 236th.” Her eyes soften at the distance between her current apartment, her grandmother’s and her childhood home- in essence, she never really did leave what she was comfortable with. 

_Perhaps it’s time to change that,_ her heart whispers.

“When I first came back here, after spending all that time in Quantico, it took me a moment to realize I’d moved,” he murmurs. “I thought I knew what home was back there, surrounded by tall trees and the chirps of birds instead of the latest morning car accident.” He chuckles. She brings herself to smile.

“I told myself this was home now,” he continues. “That I’d get used to it eventually. And yeah, I do breathe a sigh of relief when I turn the key and let myself in after a long day, and all my furniture is here, and Sunshine-” his eyes flick to the parakeet- “is here to greet me. But it didn’t feel like _home.”_

She nods, remembering the first few weeks she spent in her studio, lying awake at 3am while Black Bear woofed at any odd noise emanating from the new streets they were both unaccustomed to. 

“As the weeks went on, I realized something. It felt foreign at first; a little whisper in the back of my mind. But it grew louder, and eventually... Well, I think I got spooked by it, to be quite honest.”

Her brows furrow as she tries to seek answers from his eyes. His cheeks burn as he rubs his eyes, a shy smile forming.

“Did you ever look at what was in front of you and think, ‘is this really home?’” His question is so quiet, she almost doesn’t hear him.

“Yes,” she replies. Their fingers are separated by blocks and boroughs, but physically only inches from each other.

“That’s how I felt when I realized I had feelings for you,” he exhales while she sucks in a breath. 

“Bright, remember what I told you,” her voice tries to be stern. “I’m done playing games. You can’t half-ass this stuff with me. I don’t... I don’t deserve it.” He watches as she lets out a shaky sigh.

“You don’t,” she can feel his eyes on her, pleading. “And that’s what I realized. It was hard to believe, which is why when I realized home was right in front of me, I turned and fled. And I’m sorry, that was foolish. And hurtful to you. And ultimately, a huge mistake on my part.” 

He brings his hand over hers. She closes her eyes, but turns her hand over, intertwining their fingers.

“I ran away from you, Dani, for too long. Because I thought you were too good to be true. Because I thought you didn’t feel the same. Because I didn’t see how home could make me feel so comfortable, so accepted, just as I am.” He swallows. “But I don’t want to run anymore. I want to come _home.”_

She considers his words. His intentions. Her head and her heart. Her mother’s words. 

_“Sometimes, when it feels too good to be true, you can’t give up, because that’s when you know it’s real.”_

“Well,” she starts after a few moments, a smile beginning to trace her lips, “lucky for you, there’s a key under the mat.”

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to my hype girl @morningssofgold for always listening to my ramblings, supporting my wild ideas, and loving these two dorks as much as I do.
> 
> And to all of you readers, for letting your eyes linger more than 0.5 seconds on anything I post to this website. You help me realize I’m not screaming my latest passion into a void.


End file.
